And yet it moves (Eppur si muove) said Galileo Galilei a long time ago. Eventually we can exclaim the same for the problem of oiled birds and other organisms whose ever more frequent scenes from all over the world are stirring our conscience. Although, luckily, we haven’t been confronted with such events in our part of the Adriatic yet, we can already sense the origins of solving this problematics in Slovenia, too. After a successful training of volunteers in Koper and Sežana in 2013, the story continues: on 25th-26th May the Marine Biology Station in Piran, Slovenia, welcomed the second training course for volunteers who will from now on be ready to help professional experts in case of accidental oil-spills in the coastal marine environment.

The primary goal of the course was to upgrade the knowledge of volunteers who have been registered in the volunteer database before as well as to educate and motivate new ones. The meeting was also an opportunity for networking between NGOs, state institutions and research institutes. The course which was attended by 38 participants was a part of the activities of two ongoing projects: the IPA “Strengthening common reaction capacity to fight sea pollution of oil, toxic and hazardous substances in Adriatic sea (HAZADR)” and SIMARINE-NATURA. It was organized by the “Adriatic Training and Research Centre“- ATRAC from Rijeka (Croatia) in collaboration with experts from the National Institute of Biology – Marine Biology Station, Administration of RS for Civil Protection and Disaster Relief, and DOPPS – BirdLife Slovenia.

Speaker Vedran Martinić, the director of ATRAC, Rijeka, Croatia

The course was hosted by Marine Biology Station in Piran, Slovenia

Participants and the lecturers at the course

avtorica prispevka: Bojana Lipej

FINANCIAL CONTRIBUTION

The project is co-financed by LIFE, the financial instrument of European Union for the environment.